Like a Clock During a Thunderstorm
by Mousme
Summary: Part of the Garden 'verse. Sam, Dean, Lisa and Ben spend a quiet night together during a thunderstorm.


Title: **Like a Clock During a Thunderstorm**

Summary: Sam, Dean, Lisa and Ben spend a quiet night together during a thunderstorm. Written for the silverbullets prompt: "thunderstorms."

Characters: Sam/Lisa, Dean, Ben

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 2,660

Disclaimer: None of it is mine

Warnings: GIANT GOBS OF SCHMOOP. Please be on guard for spontaneous cases of diabetes and cavities.

Neurotic Author's Note #1: So instead of working on any at all of my writing commitments, I decided to write a new stand-alone in what I guess is now a 'verse. Maybe I'll call it the Garden 'verse, I don't know yet. This is set shortly after** I Have Come Into My Garden**. Y'all remember wee!Dean living with Sam and Lisa and Ben, and all the Sam/Lisa awkwardness? Yes? Okay, then.

Neurotic Author's Note #2: Unbeta'd. I don't even know.

* * *

"Sam, wake up."

It's pitch-dark. He almost can't tell if he's opened his eyes until a brilliant flash of light makes him flinch and squint. His chest hurts as though someone has lit it on fire, and the coppery tang of blood still lingers at the back of his mouth. He tries to lift his arms, can't so much as turn his head, pinned where he lies like some sort of grotesque specimen. If he closes his eyes he can still see the lake of fire burning all around him. He can't breathe, feels himself choking.

"Sam!" Lisa puts her hand on his chest, fingers light against his skin. "It's a nightmare. Just a nightmare, okay? You're here, you're fine."

He wants to believe her. It's one thing, knowing that she's right, a whole other thing trying to convince the rest of his body that he's not trapped and burning. He's drenched in sweat, can feel the bedsheets clinging to his back, even as Lisa keeps trying to talk him down. He keeps his eyes open, can't quite make sense of what's happening, even as another flash of light illuminates the room, followed almost immediate deep rumble.

"Sammy?"

Dean's small voice, coming from the doorway, is what snaps him out of it a moment later. He sucks in a shuddering breath, manages to sit up just as Dean's cat, Tom, jumps up on the bed and butts his head up under Sam's chin, purring loudly. Dean hasn't moved from where he's standing, one leg of his Superman pajamas rucked up over his knee, his hair mussed. Even half-dazed as he is, Sam can see his expression is anxious, and he flinches at the next flash of lightning and roar of thunder. It takes another few seconds for his brain to catch up, connect the dots and realize there's a hell of a thunderstorm outside. Luckily for him, Lisa is faster on the uptake.

"Did the storm wake you up, baby?" she asks, and Dean nods, gives her an uncertain look which he then directs at Sam.

Tom yowls loudly in-between purrs, turning in circles in Sam's lap, his paws digging painfully into the flesh of Sam's thighs. He holds out his hand to Dean. "You want to come sit on the bed?"

There's no hesitation. The minute the invitation is proffered, Dean hurls himself headlong into Sam's arms, the purple cast on his left arm colliding painfully with Sam's ribcage and forcing a surprised whoosh of air from his lungs. There's a few moments where Sam finds himself with an armful of squirming six-year-old that he can't quite figure out, but Lisa helps, laughing all the while, until Dean is nestled with his head under Sam's chin, one small hand resting right against Sam's heart as though he's trying to count the beats. He's still a little small for his age, but he's been eating better and gaining some weight, he's solid and reassuring in Sam's arms, and Sam feels the last remnants of his own bad dreams melt away into nothingness.

"You have a nightmare again?" Sam asks.

Dean doesn't remember much from before, which is a mercy most days, but there are still bits and snatches left, and far too much of his time in Hell for Sam's liking. If anyone deserves to have that burden lifted, it's Dean. Sam brushes Dean's hair back from his forehead, wondering just how he's meant to make any of this better, but Dean just shakes his head. Not Hell, then.

"Was it the storm, baby?"

Dean doesn't answer Lisa's question, but he tightens his hold on Sam, then tilts his head up to look at him. "It was loud, and I think it scared Tom, 'cause he wanted to come see you."

Sam bites back a smile as another flash of lighting makes Dean flinch in his arms. "Well, then it's a good thing you brought him here to see us. I bet he feels better already. Don't you, Tom?" He looks over at the yellow cat, which is attempting to drape itself over Lisa's shoulders, now that Sam's lap is unavailable. Lisa smiles indulgently, grabs the cat by its midriff and deposits it firmly on the bedspread. "Not that I blame him," Sam keeps stroking Dean's head. "Storms are pretty scary."

It's not actually physically possible for Dean to cling any closer. "Even Ben was scared," he whispers conspiratorially, as though conferring a great secret. Sam looks up sharply, but Lisa's already out of bed and pulling on her dressing gown.

He swings his legs off the side of the bed. "Okay, come on."

Sam gives Lisa a head start, waits just long enough to hear Ben's voice come faintly from down the hall, protesting that he wasn't scared at all. Sam shifts Dean until he's resting on his hip, head on his shoulder, sucking on the index and middle fingers of his right hand. For all that he's been coping really well with everything so far, it's moments like these that bring home just how young he really is, now. He's quiet as Sam makes his way down the hall, trying not to trip over the cat, to find Ben sitting on the edge of his bed next to Lisa.

"Hey, Dean," Sam decides to take a risk. "You remember that huge storm when we were staying in that cabin in Michigan? The one where the lightning brought down the big dead tree in the driveway?"

He didn't think Dean would remember, but to his surprise Dean nods. "It crashed and you were really scared and you cried."

Sam smiles. "Yeah, well, I was a little kid. You're being a lot braver than I was. Do you remember what we did?"

He's got Ben and Lisa's attention too, now. Dean looks up with a sudden look of hope. "Daddy woke up because you were scared and he gave us both a hug and then he made hot chocolate and s'mores."

"Best way to enjoy a thunderstorm, if you ask me. What do you think?" he looks over at Lisa to find her giving him a smile that's both fond and slightly exasperated.

"Sugar at two in the morning, Sam?"

He grins. "C'mon, Lis. Just this once?"

Ben is entirely on his side on this. "Please, Mom?"

She rolls her eyes. "Great. Now if I say no I'll be the bad guy. Again. You know, back in the day, Dean told me about his brother with the puppy-dog eyes who always got his way, and I never really believed him. But now? Yeah. I see what he meant."

"That settles it, then. Everyone who wants hot chocolate and s'mores and isn't going to be a wet blanket, follow me," he says, and winks at Lisa, enjoying the way she throws back her head and laughs, exposing the line of her throat under her silk bathrobe.

He sets Dean down on the floor when they get to the kitchen, conveniently ignoring the way Tom immediately jumps up onto the kitchen table. Ben is close on their heels, followed by Lisa, who puts her hand over the light switch before Sam can turn on the overhead light.

"I have a better idea," she says, and pulls out the stash of emergency candles from the bottom drawer by the sink.

Dean is delighted. "It'll be just like the cabin!" he says, standing on tiptoe as he tries to see over the counter to watch what Sam is doing.

Ben grabs Dean from behind. "Come on, squirt, let Sam work, or we won't get any s'mores." He hauls Dean backward, drops them both to the floor then pokes him in the ribs until Dean giggles and shrieks, squirming and kicking on the cold tiles.

Lisa gives them a few minutes before pulling them apart. "Okay, you two, settle down! Ben, why don't you bring out the mugs and some plates? Dean, you get the napkins, okay?"

There's a trick to making really good hot chocolate. Dean taught him one day when he was about ten and they'd found really good semi-sweet chocolate on sale at the grocery store. The trick is to melt the chocolate over low heat and add the milk in on top of it, if you have a double boiler. Real chocolate and real milk make for rich, velvety hot chocolate, much better than the instant powdered stuff, better even than making it just with cocoa powder.

"Best hot chocolate in the world, Sammy," Dean had said then, one hand covering Sam's smaller one, guiding his gestures as he stirred the hot chocolate, making sure it was all blended smoothly. Sam had basked in the attention that evening —Dean was older by then, more interested in spending time with the kids his age in school, particularly the girls, and it wasn't all that often that they got to hang out together anymore.

Of course, they hadn't had a double boiler then, but Dean had improvised one out of two pots, filling the bottom one with water, making Sam feel absurdly proud of just how inventive his brother was, like there wasn't anything he couldn't fix, if he set his mind to it. Lisa's kitchen is much better-stocked than theirs was at the time, and soon Sam has water boiling under the chocolate with just enough of the milk to make sure it doesn't clump.

Once the chocolate is entirely melted, Sam adds in the rest of the milk to heat on the stove, pulls out the bag of marshmallows from Lisa's not-so-secret hiding place at the back of the highest shelf in the cupboards, where they also keep the Hallowe'en candy. When he looks down he sees that Lisa has already put the chocolate and graham crackers on the counter and dumped the cat back onto the floor. She wraps her arms around his waist, rests her cheek on his bicep —mostly because she's too short to reach his shoulder, he thinks with some amusement— and watches as he carefully starts arranging the graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows on a plate. He remembers Dad pulling out their camping stove to do this so that they could roast the marshmallows over an open flame, but this isn't a hunting cabin in the woods, and times have changed. No way is he lighting up anything involving gas camping equipment in Lisa's kitchen. Luckily, microwaves are the next best thing.

"I taught Sammy how to do that," Dean tells Ben, who rolls his eyes.

"Right."

"I did too!"

"Dean, inside voice, please." Sam winces a little bit, and Dean lapses into sulky silence. It lasts for about ten seconds.

"Mommy taught me, and I taught Sammy afterward."

Sam almost drops the spoon with which he's stirring the hot chocolate. "Mom taught you?"

"She says it's the best hot chocolate in the world," Dean is carefully folding the paper napkins, matching up the corners so that they line up evenly, and doesn't appear to have noticed that he's talking about their mother in the present tense.

Sam turns down the heat under the milk, slips an arm around Lisa's waist and presses a kiss to her temple. He has no idea what it does to her when Dean has these lapses, but he figures she must find them at least as painful and confusing as he does. Sometimes it's as though Dean never grew up at all, as though Mom's only been dead for a little while and Dean is too young to really grasp it, as though the past thirty years or so never happened, as though he never met Lisa before this. As though Lisa is just some nice lady that he and his brother live with now.

"You okay?" Sam murmurs, and to her credit she nods, even though her eyes are a little too bright.

"Give me the s'mores. I'll put them in the microwave for you," she tilts her head up, accepts a quick kiss, takes the plate from his hands.

Sam grabs Tom from where he's jumped up onto the table again, and puts him back on the floor, ignoring the cat's insulted look. He stirs the hot chocolate one last time, pours it out into the four mugs Ben put out, adds some of the remaining marshmallows for good measure, much to Dean's delight. Even Ben grins happily and reaches immediately for his own mug, blowing on the steaming surface before trying a sip. The microwave beeps shrilly, and Lisa sets the plate of s'mores on a cork board on the table, cautioning Dean to keep his fingers to himself.

"It's too hot to touch. Wait a minute, okay?"

Dean huffs impatiently, kicking his heels against the rungs of his chair. "Okay."

"Hey, Dean, pull my finger!" Ben holds out his hand.

"Ben don't encourage—" Lisa lets out a sigh as the inevitable happens and Dean shrieks with laughter again. "Why do I even bother?"

Sam grins. "You get used to it after about thirty years of him finding that joke funny. Or, well, you don't, but it comes with a sort of terrible resignation."

"Spare me," Lisa grins, lights a few more candles, and Sam fills the now-empty pot with soapy water in the sink. No sense in leaving it all to congeal overnight, it'll just be a sticky mess to clean up in the morning. "Think we're ready?" she asks, and he can tell the question isn't directed at him from the excited chorus of 'yes!' that it elicits from both boys.

"Sammy, you're missing the s'mores!" Dean says, his words muffled by marshmallow. His face and fingers are already smeared with melted chocolate. Sam hopes that it won't be too difficult to clean it off his cast later.

Sam resists the impulse to pull him into his lap —Dean is obviously perfectly content where he is, and it would be selfish of Sam to indulge his own need to have his brother close. Dean deserves to grow up without being clung to and depended on, for once. Lisa has drawn her chair up between Sam and Ben, across the table from Dean, and she flashes him an understanding look. Tom jumps back onto the table, and Sam sighs, gives up on trying to keep him off when the cat just curls up on the corner of the table beside him, tucks his paws under his chest and purrs in a deep, throaty rumble.

Outside the storm has long since subsided into just a steady patter of rain, a quiet whisper of water against the windows. The candles cast a warm glow in the kitchen, framing Lisa's face in light and shadow as she attempts unsuccessfully to eat a s'more without getting her fingers sticky. Ben is already on his fourth s'more, looking particularly pleased with himself, and for a moment it all feels too good to be true, just a little too close to the sorts of hallucinations he had when he was still locked away before Lucifer ripped it all to shreds —Lucifer liked it best that way, to give him a glimmer of hope, of normalcy, before making sure that Sam knew it was all for naught.

A sudden pressure on his thigh startles Sam out of his thoughts, and to his surprise he finds Dean scrambling into his lap. He wriggles a little until he's settled comfortably on Sam's knee, then reaches out to pull the plate toward them.

"You haven't had a s'more yet," Dean holds one up for him in a sticky hand, and Sam finds himself grinning as he accepts it.

Across the table Ben rolls his eyes, but he's still smiling a little, licking his fingers, his mother watching them all fondly. Sam gives Dean a squeeze with his free arm and risks a quick kiss to the top of his head.

"Thank you."


End file.
